"The Mission of Socialism is Wide as the World"
Eugene V. Debs.
July 4, 2014
Marxist Internet Archive
On the 4th of July people tend to think back about the history of this
country. Here is a little bit of Labor history in the form of a speech
by Eugene Debs on July 4, 1901. Debs was a founder of the American
Railway Union and the Socialist Party. In 1920, while in prison for
opposing World War 1, he received 915,000 votes for President, running
as a Socialist.
"The Mission of Socialism is Wide as the World": Speech at Chicago, Illinois -- July 4, 1901.
Published in the Social Democratic Herald [Chicago], v. 4, no. 4, whole no. 158 (July 13, 1901), pp. 1, 4.
Ladies, Gentlemen, and Comrades:
It is our good fortune, if we can boast, no other, to live in the most
marvelous age of all the centuries, not contemplating the material
progress of our time, which overwhelms and bewilders by its
extraordinary achievements. Improvements have been accomplished as if by
magic and we behold with wonder and awe the march of human conquest.
The forces of nature which terrified primitive man, and before which the
ancient world bent in superstition, have to a large extent been
conquered and are the subject servants of man's desire. In this march of
progress the brain and heart have been expanded, the one shedding light
and the other life, without which civilization would turn back upon its
axis.
Fortunately for man, everything is subject to change, and all change
tends to the development of the race and the advancement of human
institutions. Institutions crumble in this march of time. All of were
disregarded.
They objected to taxation without representation. Their protests were
scorned. Finally they revolted. They issued the Declaration of
Independence and enunciated the proposition that men are created equal.
But the founders of this republic had only vague conceptions of
democracy. The working class as we understand it today were not
represented in the Constitutional Convention.
The founders of the republic in declaring that men were created equal
evidently meant themselves alone. They did not include the negro, who
had been brought here against his will and had been reduced to a state
of abject slavery. The institution of chattel slavery was already
securely established at that time. It was founded in iniquity, yet it
did not seemingly disturb the consciences of the founders of the them
have their periods of gestation, of birth, of development, maturity,
decline, decay, and death. All of them come in their order. They fulfill
their mission, they give birth to their offspring, and they pass away.
A little over a century ago the inhabitants of this country were not
citizens. They were ruled by a foreign king. They petitioned for relief.
Their petitions republic. This institution was in conflict with the
spirit of the Declaration, with the genius of free institutions, and yet
it was incorporated in them. It steadily grew in power, and in course
of time it controlled the country and the courts and the life of the
people.
On this day, commemorating the 4th of July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was issued.
Thousands of orators all over this broad land will glorify the
institutions under which we live. In pride they will point toward Old
Glory and declare that it is a flag that waves over a free country. In
these modern days we hear very much about that flag and about the
institutions over which it waves. I am not of those who worship the
flag. I have no respect for the stars and stripes, or for any other flag
that symbolizes slavery. It does not matter to me what others may
think, say, or do. I propose to preserve the integrity of my soul. I
will give you a transcript of my mind and tell you precisely what I
think. Not very long ago the President of the country [William
McKinley], in the attitude of mock heroics, asked who would haul down
the flag. I will tell him. Triumphant Socialism will haul down that flag
and every other that symbolizes capitalist class rule and wage slavery.
I am a patriot, but in the sense that I love all countries. I love the
sentiment of William L. Garrison: "All the world is my country and all
mankind are my countrymen." Thomas Jefferson once said: "Where liberty
is, is my country." That is good. Thomas Paine said: "Where liberty is
honored, that is my country." That is better. Where liberty is not,
Socialism has a mission, and, therefore, the mission of Socialism is as
wide as the world.
The framers of the Constitution of this country had no faith in the
people. They did not suffer them to see the proceedings of the
Convention. The insufferable institution of chattel slavery was
compromised in the American Constitution. It was at this time a
perfectly legal institution, but it was founded inn iniquity. It was
doomed to finally disappear and the agitation against it began in a
feeble way. Lovejoy was one of the pioneers of the revolt. He went to
New England and then to Illinois, and with all the vigor of his
intellect began to attack slavery. A committee called upon him. He said
to them, "I can afford to die at my post, but I cannot afford to desert
it." I take pride in paying to such a man the humble tribute of my
gratitude and love. It is such men as he who have made it possible for
me to enjoy some degree of liberty. I can only discharge my duty to him
and to them to try to do something for those who are to come after me.
In 1837 the mob took his office and destroyed it by fire, his printing
press was thrown in the Mississippi River, and he was murdered.
But to the greatest and noblest figure among those early pioneers was
reserved the final act which culminated in the rule in which the
institution of slavery disappeared from American soil. I need only
mention his name, and although it is a very common one, you will at once
recognize it -- John Brown. He was educated in no college, he graduated
from no university -- he was simply a child of the people. He knew that
is part in that struggle required the sacrifice of his life, and with a
dozen men he attacked the so-called Commonwealth of Virginia. He struck
the immortal blow. He was dragged through a mob trial, he was sentenced
to death. On his way to the gallows he begged for a negro child and
pressed a kiss upon its black face.
He was strangled to death. His soul went its way to that bourne from
which no traveler returns. John Brown was branded a traitor, a
scoundrel, and a monster of iniquity. The whole country applauded the
crime [of his execution]. In just 10 years, with the mellowing wings of
time, John Brown was the hero of the people; enshrined in their hearts
-- he had won immortality.
Chattel slavery disappeared because in the development of machinery an
improved form of slavery was required, and this new slavery must not be
confined to the black race alone, but must embrace within its mighty
folds all of the toiling children of men. Slavery in that form only
became extinct and the people as such only rose against it when it
became impossible; and just here it is in order to say that the
development in every form is dependent upon economic conditions.
We live today under a system that has the best code of morals and the
best instruments of production and distribution. It has also the most
destructive weapons of warfare. Commercialism not only requires the
cheapest possible production, but it also requires the most murderous
instruments of death, and in the full development of this system the
world pays its highest tribute to that man who can devise ways and means
that can murder the most men in the smallest space of time. If you go
to the city of Washington tomorrow
with some device that will enable you to kill one million human beings
in the twinkling of an eye, your name will become famous.
When the [Civil] war closed, modern machinery was developing very
rapidly, the small workshop was beginning to disappear, being supplanted
by the larger factory. The individual worked no longer by himself, for
his tool had been touched by the magic of industrial evolution; the shop
began to expand and the modern industrial revolution was on. Up to this
time production was carried on largely for use in separate communities.
There was no demand for a foreign market because there was no surplus
production, and the worker's ability to consume was equal to his
producing capacity. But with the advent of machinery, conditions were
changed. If the workers had had intelligence enough to have retained the
ownership and control of the tool -- that is to say, of the means of
production, there would have been no such problems as now confront us.
The women were formerly the queens of the homes, and the children were
being sent to school and equipped for the battle of life. When labor
began to supply so abundantly and the machine could be operated by the
finger of a little child, we had an intensification of the struggle --
women competing with men and the child competing with all. No workingman
is given employment that he may provide for himself and his family. It
is only on condition that a profit can be extracted from his labor. If
there is no profit he is discharged. His wife may suffer, his children
may be on the street, no matter what the results, he cannot work.
I have said again and again in this system there is nothing quite so
cheap as human flesh and blood. It is in the power of a single
individual sitting in New York to press a button that will send a
message over the wire that will doom 50,000 willing men, women, and
children. Concentration and cooperation are the master forces of this
age. In the conflict that is going forward among the capitalists, the
capital of the country is held in the hands of a few, and these few,
though untitled and uncrowned, wield greater power than crowned kings
and despots. The owners of the means of production are the real rulers
of the American people and of all other people of other nations. Those
who control the means of production, land, and capital, control all
human institutions.
Now, there are a great many men who believe that they have a voice in
government. You workingmen have as much to do with the control of this
government as if you inhabited Mars or some other planet. (Cheers.) You
regularly deposit your ballot and suppose it to be counted. The will of
the people is supposed to be registered. But what your votes register is
the will of the capitalist class. The capitalist class rules absolutely
in every department of our government. It controls every legislature.
It controls both branches of Congress and the Supreme Court is simply
its convenience. Why, it is not possible for a lawyer, whatever his
attainments, to find his way to the bench of the Supreme Court unless he
has given overwhelming evidence of his capacity to serve the capitalist
class and his willingness to crook the pregnant hinges of the knee that
thrift may follow fawning. Every judge who sits on the bench of the
Supreme Court today is a tool of the capitalist class. I had an
experience. (Great applause.) I think it was a good thing. I ought to
have known better.
The working class have no rights. I am not fond of denouncing the
capitalist class. I am more inclined to find fault with the working
class.
Now, do you know that for every capitalist, large and small, in the
United States there are about 10 workingmen? That is to say, you
workingmen are in the majority, are in the clear majority of 10 to 1,
and as long as you suffer the capitalist class to rule, you do not
deserve to fare better. As Lincoln said: "If that is what you want, that
is what you want," and as long as you are satisfied with the capitalist
rule or misrule, you will have to submit to it.
Now, a few workingmen realize that the old parties are simply two wings
of the same capitalist vulture, and that every reform party is a
straggling tail feather in that same bird. Socialism is after that bird,
and if you look at it you can see the light between the wings. Some of
that light is beginning to reach gradually the working class.
They are beginning to realize, first, that their interests as workingmen
are absolutely identical, that what is good for one is good for all,
what it equal for one is equal for all. They are beginning to realize
that there are trade unions in the year 1901 which fall short of
requirements; that while organization is a necessity upon the economic
field, it is vastly more important on the political field. There was a
time when there was some efficiency in the strike. What difference does
it make to you to go out on strike, even if you win a raise in your
wages of 15, 20, or 25 cents per day, if the same class that employs and
pays your wages has also the power to raise the cost of the
commodities?
In the wage system you and your children, and your children's children,
if capitalism shall prevail until they are born, are condemned to
slavery and there is no possible hope unless by throwing over the
capitalist and voting for Socialism. Now, what you want to do is quit
every capitalist party of every name whatsoever. What you want to do is
to organize your class and assert your class interests as capitalists do
the interests of the class that is robbing you. It will not do for you
to go to the polls and vote for some good men on some of the tickets and
expect relief in that way. What can a good man do if he should happen
to get to Congress? What could he do? Why, he simply would be polluted
or helpless, or both. What we want is not to reform the capitalist
system. We want to get rid of it. (Tremendous cheers.)
Now, it is a curious thing to me that a great many workingmen will vote
for a thing that will do them no good, a thing that they do not want,
because they are dead sure of getting it; and they will vote against the
thing they need, against the thing they want, because they reason that
if they all vote for it they might get it. Every workingman in every
community should assert himself on election day, totally regardless of
what others do.
Suppose you are the only Socialist in the community. Now, that might
require a little more courage on your part, and if you lack it we cannot
win. But if you have a little more courage and if you cast a Socialist
vote, you will give some evidence of the final redemption of your
community. If you cast that vote, someday you and your children will be
proud of it; you will make a beginning and you will soon have company.
Now, I would rather vote my convictions and vote alone than to vote
against my convictions and be with the majority. What good is it to be
with the majority of cowards, anyway? As a matter of fact, in the
history of great principles, men everywhere have been wrong outside the
minority. All of these great changes depend upon minorities, and in the
march of time a minority becomes a majority and everyone applauds. In 10 years from now it will be very difficult in the city of Chicago to find a man who was not a Socialist 25 years ago.
There has never been any democracy in the world. Political democracy in
the United States, so called, is a myth. A single capitalist, upon whom
25 workingmen depend, has political power more than equal to the slaves
in his employ, simply because he owns and controls the means upon which
their lives depend, without which they are doomed to idleness and
starvation. What good would it do if it were in my power to shut off the
supply of life and heat; you would all vote my ticket, would you not?
Your lives depend upon the control and ownership of the means of
production and distribution.
The owner of the slaves had to provide for them, he had to feed them,
and he had to care for them in a way. It is not necessary to own slaves
bodily today in order to exploit their labor. You simply have to own the
tool, then they are completely at your mercy. To begin with, a slave
cannot buy the modern tool. They are gigantic machines of great cost.
The great mass of workingmen cannot buy them. They are compelled to
present themselves at the door of the giant and humbly petition him for
the privilege of using the tools they made for a share of what their
labor produces. They are at his mercy, and not only this, but in the
regular periods of depression that always follow periods of activity, it
is even a privilege to be a slave, and thousands of so-called free
Americans are denied that privilege. (Cheers.) If they go on voting the
Republican ticket and the Democratic ticket, either party perpetuates
the system that keeps them in fetters and their wives in rags and their
children in hunger.
Arouse, ye slaves! Declare war, not on the capitalist, but on the
capitalist system, and if it should be your fate or your fortune to
suffer in years to come, that suffering will not be the result of your
own deliberate act. I am for the freedom of the working class. Though my
heart yearns for the freedom of men, I am powerless. Only the working
class itself can achieve its emancipation. The workingman who is not yet
awakened, who has not yet realized all his class interests, is a blind
tool, the willing instrument of his own degradation, and thousands of
them on the 4th of July, when reference is made to the capitalist flag
that symbolizes the triumph of capitalism only, thousands of these wage
slaves will applaud their own degradation. What is wanted is not a
reform of the capitalist system, but its entire abolition.
Notwithstanding the boast that is often made that this is an era of
prosperity, notwithstanding the statement that is made by capitalist
politicians that the wages of workingmen are higher than ever in the
history of the history of the country, I do not hesitate to declare, and
I challenge refutation, that there never was a time when wages were so
small in proportion to the products as now. Politicians assure us that
we are extremely prosperous because our exports exceed the exports of
all other nations of the world. What have you got to do with the
exports? I think if you held a little interview with your stomach, you
are more interested with import than export. Much money goes into the
pockets of the capitalist class out of the product of your labor. You
never receive notice from the government to get your share of the
dividends, and as a matter of fact, in this system the more you produce
the worse you are off. If you could produce as much tomorrow as you could in the next six months, you would be out of a job the day after tomorrow. (Loud applause.)
I wonder how many of the workingmen of Chicago are enjoying today at the
sea coast this summer, or how many of them are toying with icicles in
the arctic region, and next September how many will go down to Florida
and stop at the Palmetto Hotel? Not many of them. Only the man can
afford these luxuries, can afford these enjoyments, who has nothing to
do with the production of them. No man that has anything to do with
building a Pullman car can ride in it. You show me a man who has to make
a Pullman car, and I will show you a man who walks when he travels.
If you have calloused hands, I will show you precisely what degree you
mark on the social thermometer. I will locate you close to the zero
point.
A man has to be a master or a slave. He will have to either wield a lash
or hold the plow. Socialism proposes to free them both and level them
both up to the plane of manhood. Whatever walk of life, constant
struggle is going forward, man is arrayed against man, nation against
nation, and all due to the capitalist system. The survival of the
fittest is a survival of cunning over conscience. Business means doing
somebody else, and in the struggle the middle class loses in economic
power. Men are driven to dishonesty in the system; they suspect each
other, not because they do not know each other, but because they do. It
is a mock civilization. Socialism will give humanity a new world. (Great
cheer.)
Business men attend the same prayer meeting, but they keep a business
eye on each other. Business is business, and each one knows that the
other is trying to do him. In the capitalist system we cannot give
expression to the noblest sentiments of humanity; all success is born of
failure and he who achieves the largest success succeeds in destroying
the largest number of his fellow men.
The revolution is under way, but, like all revolutions, it is totally
blind. It is in the nature of great social forces that they sometimes
sweep humanity down. Let us work so that this revolution may come in
peace. Socialists are organized to pave the way for its peaceful
culmination.
We appeal first to the working class to come together in one
class-conscious solidarity. We likewise appeal to the middle class who
will day by day be forced down in the crowded ranks of the working
class. We are asking them to open their eyes and see the new light.
Their class is doomed and this debauched civilization is doomed to
disappear with them. If I were in the middle class today, I would be a
Socialist. I would be a socialist from a perfectly selfish motive. I
would say to myself: "My class is to be crowded out, and my only hope is
in the new social order; and although I may not live to see it, I may
be doomed to die a slave, I will cast my lot with the man that proposes
to make it possible for my children and the children of my children to
enjoy life."
But there are a great many who say that is all well enough, but we will
not see it in our time. When a man talks so to me, I am inclined to
think that there is something seriously wrong with him. Very often the
case is that it is impossible to reach the intellect of such a man as
this. It is questionable whether he has a thing that we can properly
call by that name.
So far as I am concerned it does not matter in the slightest whether it
comes next year or next century, or in a thousand centuries -- that is
not a question that concerns me. I simply know that the change is bound
to come sometime and I know that it is my duty to do all I can to hasten
its coming; and although I feel and indeed, I know, that I will be here
to help celebrate its coming, to ratify its triumph, whether I am or
not is a matter of the slightest consequence. I simply say that the
capitalist system has almost fulfilled its mission. On every hand we
behold the signs of change. It is disintegrating. It is to dissolve and
pass away and you can prolong it if you wish and that is what you are
doing if you war supporting the old parties.
There are two fundamental principles that are in conflict with each
other -- individualism and cooperation. Now there is perfect
individualism among the beasts of the jungle. They do not cooperate,
they compete, and the stronger competitor devours the weaker. You see a
girl in the sweatshop only able to earn enough to keep her wretched soul
within her shrunken body. Her pulled cheeks, her sunken eyes, her
emaciated body testify to the poverty and horror of the competitive
system. Hail the coming of Socialism!
But in every nation, in every civilized nation,men and women are massing
beneath the banner of Socialism, men and women, for in Socialism woman
stands side by side with man, she has all the rights that he enjoys.
We declare then, that the time has come when working men should open
their eyes to the economic struggle, when they should have an
intelligent understanding of Socialism and pave the way for its triumph
and the abolishment of capitalism from the face of the world.
Now I have a right to get rich if I can in this system. I scorn to get rich. I could get rich only by making someone else poor.
Suppose I have sharper claws and keener fangs than some of the rest of
you, am I justified in using them to prey upon your vitals? If I have
any ability whatever, I can only prove it by using it for the benefit of
my fellow man. John Rockefeller is as completely a slave as any coal
miner in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania. He lives in a gilded
cell, but he is serving a life sentence. He does not mingle with his
fellow men, he does not enjoy the fellowship of the class he robs. He
rules by the power of private ownership and he tries to ease the pangs
of conscience by endowing universities. We do not want educational
institutions in that way and when Socialism supplants capitalism, and
when the wealth that is created is in the possession of the men who
created it, when every man has not only plenty of what is required to
supply his physical wants, but has leisure to enjoy, we will fill this
country with educational institutions, we will make education universal;
not only that, we will rescue industry from its cupidity. Then man
shall stand erect in touch with his fellow man. He will be the monarch
of his work. It will not be possible for one man to enslave another
without forging fetters for himself. There is no release, there is no
relief on any other line. It is Socialism or capitalism; as capitalism
declines, Socialism follows it, so it is only a question of time.
I like the 4th of July. It breathes a spirit of revolution. On this day
we reaffirm the ultimate triumph of Socialism. It is coming as certain
as I stand in your presence. Trials are not to be regretted. They are a
part and a necessary part of the development. We may disagree. We may
divide. It is possible that we shall quarrel and still be perfectly
honest. The development demands it all. We are all subscribers to the
same fundamental principles. We all stand upon the same uncompromising
platform. We all have our faces turned toward the economic dawn. We are
battling for the triumph of the producers of the world. We are in touch
with the International Socialists of the world -- with our ears turned
down, we can hear the thrones totter before the great march of the
international hosts of Socialism.
So do not be discouraged for a single instant. If you have the courage
of your convictions you can face the universe. So far as I am concerned,
if there were a million, I would be one of the million. If they should
be reduced to a thousand, I would be one of a thousand; if reduced to a
hundred, I would be one of the hundred; if a single one survive, I would
be that one against the world. I want every one of you to be that one
and if you find that you are not so constituted that you can be that one
against the world, you have no place in the Socialist movement, but go
to the old parties and stay there until you get ripe.
We are educating, we are agitating, we are organizing, that is to say we
are preparing for the inevitable. It is only a question of time when
Socialists will be in the majority. They will succeed on a platform
declaring for the social ownership of the means of production and
distribution. Then the factory will no longer be a dismal den thronged
with industrial convicts. Then for a' that and a' that, man to man the
world o'er, shall brothers be for a' that.
Edited by Tim Davenport. Published by 1000 Flowers Publishing, Corvallis, OR, 2006. * Non-commercial reproduction permitted.
http://www.marxisthistory.org
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